The Life of Love is The Christian Life

Photo by Markus Grossalber, CC BY 2.0

Anyone who does not remain in Christ’s teaching but goes beyond it, does not have God. The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son.

-2 John 1:9

In Christianity, there is great danger of going beyond Christ's teaching.  There are many ways that people do this.

Christ's teaching is to love one another.  That is it.  We are not supposed to go beyond it or avoid it.

We love, because he loves.  The Father loves the Son and those who love the Son and loved by the Father.  And we obey Jesus, because we love him, having received his love, which is God's love.

Obedience to Christ is to love him and love one another.  We live in his love, loving him and being loved by him in a world that lacks love, but needs God love.

So, when the world hates us or is indifferent towards us, we are not surprised, for the world does not have God's love: they have not yet received it.  

When we are not loved by the world, we are not surprised, but know we are loved by God in Christ.  We walk in God's love in Christ in a loveless world.  We don't love the world or the things of the world, but we reach out to the world, with Christ's love, offering the world the same gift of love that we have received.

"Love one another", is the message of the life in Christ.  Everything works out of love.  Nothing works when we are not walking in love.

When we receive his love, we love him back, surrendering our whole lives to him.  He gave his all and we give our all back.  The Christian life is a life of generosity founded on love.

The deeper life is a life of deeper surrender and a deepening experience of God's love in Christ.

The primary goal of the Christian life is loving one another.  

The core of the Christian life is letting God love me and then loving myself and loving others.  This is lived out in my secret history with God and in "one anothering".   Growth in love happens in the one another.  

The daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and end-of-life test is, love.  Did you love?  Right now, are you loving?  

If we are not loving, but we are Christians, it tells us that we have a problem.  That problem is only solved through Christ.  God loves me, through Christ.

There is no 'higher', 'beyond that', teaching than, "Jesus loves me, this I know".

The goal of the Christian life is to know that love, and then make that love known, by being loving to others.

All of this love is grounded in the Son of God who lived a human life and taught on love.  He sacrificed everything to bring us God's love and seal our fate in God's love.

We, in turn, upon experiencing his sacrifice, give him our lives for him to live through us.  And that is the Christian life.

When we refuse to surrender to him, yet claim him as our savior, we set our whole lives up for pain and misery.  It would be like driving a car or flying a plane, with two pairs of hands on the wheel or controls.  It does not work and we end up with the control and wonder why our lives are miserable.

We can not bypass the simple life of love, receiving his love and loving others.  That is "the road" and other roads are roads to destruction.

Heartaches,
Broken people,
Ruined lives are why you died on Calvary...

He died so I could live.  And the death he died for me, was out of love.

Now, I will live a life of love, from the love he gave and keeps giving.  That is the gospel, the good news; plain and simple.

He came in the flesh and redeemed us, showing and teaching God's love.  And, as his followers, we in turn, live lives of love.

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See also:  Was Jesus Fully Human and Fully God? by Greg Boyd